A pharmaceutical container (e.g., a bottle of pills) is typically accompanied by a folded sheet of paper having printed information pertaining to the use and contents of the drug or other pharmaceutical product inside the container. The folded sheet of paper, commonly referred to as an outsert, may be adhered to the top or side of the pharmaceutical container, or alternatively, placed within a cardboard box used to package the pharmaceutical container. A consumer may unfold the outsert after purchasing the pharmaceutical container to read the printed information and learn about the benefits and risks associated with taking the drug.
Government regulations require the outserts for some drugs to set forth a significant number of warnings and other information. Consequently, in some cases, the sheet of paper used to make the outsert may be very large and may have multiple folds, in several different directions, so that it is small enough to be attached to the exterior of the pharmaceutical container and/or fit within the box carrying the pharmaceutical container. Forming the outsert may therefore require a number of different folding units, each folding unit imparting the sheet of paper with a different type of fold, and with some of the folds being perpendicular to each other. The folding units are typically arranged adjacent one another other along an assembly line such that adding more folding units increases the overall length of the assembly line. Generally, the more times a sheet of paper is folded, the more difficult it is to create each successive fold. Thus, downstream folding units may have to be separated by a pressing unit to help flatten the previous fold before the sheet of paper passes to the next folding section. The inclusion of pressing units further increases the length of the assembly line. Additionally, due to the difficulty of forming an additional fold in sheet of paper having many folds, the downstream stream folding units may only create a single fold in the sheet paper. Accordingly, many folding units may be needed to fold the sheet of paper multiple times.
FIG. 1 illustrates a top view of a known folding system 100 including, in the following order, a sheet feeder 110, a scoring unit 112, a folding unit 114, a variable speed transfer unit 116, a folding unit 118, a folding unit 120, a pressing unit 122, a folding unit 124, a pressing unit 126, a folding unit 128, a pressing unit 130, and a vertical stacker delivery unit 132. The folding unit 114 creates a plurality of parallel folds (e.g., a fan fold) in a direction perpendicular to the folds created by the folding unit 118. To accommodate this change in folding direction and to avoid having to re-orient the folded sheet before entering the folding unit 118, the folding system 100 inherently includes a 90 degree turn between the folding unit 114 and the folding unit 118. As a result, the folding system 100 has an L-shape, and thus requires a significant amount of floor space. In some instances, the footprint area enclosed by the folding system 100 (i.e., the total length L of the folding system 100 times the total width W of the folding system 100) may exceed 500 square feet. In addition to the inherent L-shape of the folding system 100, it is common for the folding system 100 to reside within boxes surrounded by fencing. This to help ensure that only a single type of informational item is being processed by the folding system 100 at any given time and to minimize mixing of different informational items. The known folding system 100 and any needed fencing therefore occupies a relatively large amount of valuable factory floor space. Moreover, its L-shape makes it difficult to compactly arrange the folding system 100 amongst other machines. Still further, the L-shape of the folding system 100 requires the operator to walk significant distances between the different processing units when operating and/or performing maintenance on the folding system 100. The layout of the folding system 100 can thus have a negative impact on the operator's efficiency.